While more than 180,000 residents remain evacuated from their homes in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties in California, there is no timetable as to when people can return home as water officials and engineers assess the damage and situation at the two damaged Oroville Dam spillways, the Butte County sheriff said Monday.

As tensions remain high around the area, some good news came early Monday morning when water levels at Lake Oroville dropped below capacity, stopping water from spilling over the potentially hazardous emergency spillway.

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However, officials are still looking to lower the lake another 50 feet to less than 850 feet elevation to allow space in the lake for the upcoming storm, projected to arrive Thursday. Dropping the lake levels that much without increasing outflows could take several more days, KCRA meteorologist Dirk Verdoorn said.

Meanwhile, crews are working to repair the damaged emergency spillway before the next storm moves in.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea spoke at noon Monday about where the evacuation orders stand and addressed a rumor that evacuations would be lifted Monday, saying "that is not accurate."

"We are working on a repopulation plan to allow for the safe and orderly repopulation or return of the citizens to their homes," Honea said. "When it is safe, based upon the evaluations from DWR and our state and federal partners, then we will be in a better position to decide when we can lift the evacuations."

Honea added that this is a dynamic situation and there are a lot of factors that contributed to the evacuation orders. He said that his office's primary goal is to ensure the safety of the community and the residents the sheriff's office serves.

"I recognize and appreciate the frustration that the people who have been evacuated feel," Honea said. "That was not a decision I made lightly. Getting those people home is important to me, but I have to be able to sleep at night knowing they are back safely."

As for a timeline of when residents can expect to return home, Honea could not predict when that would happen, citing the ever-changing situation.

While evacuation orders remain in place for many communities and cities around Lake Oroville and downstream along the Feather River, Lake Oroville has fallen below 100 percent capacity of 901 feet to 895.25 feet, as of 2 p.m., according to the California Department of Water Resources. At its peak at 3 a.m. Monday, the lake was at 902.59 feet.

The flows into the lake are about 37,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water, while the outflows remain high at nearly 100,000 cfs by way of the damaged normal spillway, DWS officials said at 12:30 p.m.

Outflows by way of the normal spillway have stayed at 100,000 cfs since about 6 p.m. Sunday, which has contributed to the decrease in the lake level, according to Bill Croyle, acting director of the California Department of Water Resources.

About 188,000 people heeded evacuation orders Sunday evening from several law enforcement agencies and the California Office of Emergency Services as officials warned of the possible failure of the emergency spillway, which could send a 30-foot wall of water into communities along the Feather River Basin.

The low-lying areas in these cities were ordered to evacuate immediately:

Oroville

Gridley

Arboga

Marysville

Hallwood

Olivehurst

Plumas Lake

Live Oak

Nicolaus

**Yuba City is under an evacuation advisory, and Wheatland is under a voluntary evacuation order.

There is no word on when evacuation orders will be lifted, but DWR officials want to make sure everything is going to hold up around Lake Oroville before they give the all clear to return home.

"We want to make sure we're looking at everything, whether its hydrologic, our weather forecasts and our condition of our infrastructure to make sure we are doing everything we can to make sure that that operates and protects the public," Bill Croyle said. "I think today (Sunday) was an example that it was a tough call to make, but it was the right call to make to protect the public."

ROAD CLOSURES:

Drivers heading south from the Chico area should be aware of the following road closures:

Southbound Highway 99 from Durham-Pentz Road to south of Yuba City

Southbound Highway 70 from Highway 149 to south of Yuba City

Roads below the Oroville Dam Spillway in Oroville, Thermalito, Biggs and Gridley south to the Butte County line are closed

Drivers heading south from the Chico area should take Highway 132 to Interstate 5 south. Avoid roads west of Chico that are typically used to access I-5 south as they are closed due to flooding, including Sacramento Avenue, River Road, Old Ferry Road, Aguas Frias Road and 7 Mile Lane.

The Butte County superintendent of schools has ordered all schools to remain closed Monday as evacuations are still in place. Colusa Unified School District superintendant has also issued a closure of his schools.

All offices of the Butte County Office of Education and schools in Oroville will remain closed.

Butte County school districts which are not closed Monday include Chico Unified School District and Paradise Union School District.

QUESTIONS?

A public information line has been set up for any residents with additional questions: 530-872-5951

EVACUATION CENTERS:

Chico:

Silver Dollar Fairgrounds at 2357 Fair Street (no longer full)

Neighborhood Church of Chico at 2801 Notre Dame (no animals)

St. Johns Episcopal Church at 2341 Floral Ave. (small animals if leashed and crated)

WHAT PROMPTED THE EVACUATIONS?

Evacuations were issued about 4 p.m. Sunday when officials monitoring the two spillways (the emergency/auxiliary and the damaged/normal spillway) identified a eroding hole that was beginning to form from the water hammering down on the emergency spillway.

The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatened to undermine the concrete weir and would allow large, uncontrolled releases of the water to flow from Lake Oroville, DWR officials said.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said engineers with DWR informed him shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday that the erosion on the emergency spillway was not advancing as fast as they thought.

"Unfortunately, they couldn't advise me or tell me specifically how much time that would take so we had to make the very difficult and critical decision to initiate the evacuation of the Orville area and all locations south of that," Honea said. "We needed to get people moving quickly to save lives if the worst case scenario came into fruition."

An OES spokesperson said Sunday that the potential failure of Lake Oroville's emergency spillway was "potentially catastrophic."

Water began flowing over the emergency spillway Saturday morning as the lake reached full capacity. Water officials debated all week, since the erosion was discovered on the normal spillway, as to whether that auxiliary spillway would need to be used.